Lifestyle: Remembering What God Has Done

Traditionally, in the past, New Year’s Day carried me into a lull or a bit of depression. It was like the “Big Let Down” following all the excitement building up to Christmas. My household was small, just my sister, my mother and myself. We lived hand-to-mouth. If my mother managed to keep of bit of money in her pocket, which wasn’t too often, we might have enough to do something special on New Year’s Day, like to go skiing.

I never saw my father on New Year’s Day. Working in the restaurant business, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day were his busiest days of the year. He always worked them.

I think, for the most part, my sadness surrounded the thought after the Christmas rush, “Is that it?”

I never liked taking the ornaments off the tree and packing away all the Christmas decorations. The finale. The admission that the holiday season had come to its end. I don’t like endings.

If there is going to be an ending, make it big! Have the hugest party of the season! How about a game day where close friends come together and play board games and fill the air with laughter and silliness? This would be a fantastic way to transition from the old year to the new!

Not everyone in my circle was idyllic like me, nor did they share my enthusiasm. Generally, New Year’s days were quiet and I went about sulking. What made it worse, I got it in my head that the rest of the world was having fun and I was missing out.

Today, a lot of the time I still feel like the rest of the world is out there having fun and I am missing out, but New Year’s days don’t fill me with melancholy like they used to. Maybe I have simply “grown up.” I do like to reflect upon the year gone by and the year ahead, however.

Call it a time of “remembering what God has done,” because, there is one thing we all will have in common this year. Each one of us can look back at the last year and see how God has blessed us.

Last year (did it ever go by quickly) I began the year with the desire and burning to be a force of love in life. I can honestly report that with God’s help, I succeeded! I was deliberate and focused in my attempting to achieve this. This year, looking forward, I will be stepping out. I will be stepping out of my comfort zone and trying to be a presence in my community.

I sense in this new year drastic changes are coming and I really desire to be someone who is useful. This will carry my force of love to deeper dimensions. Believe me, as someone who doesn’t like commitment, this is a big challenge and quite overwhelming. Once again, I will be wholly depending on God to help me fulfill my desires. And I trust and pray that in one year’s time, I will be able to look back upon my blessings from this year with satisfaction.

All in all, 2016 was a good year for me. I advanced in so many ways as a person, God blessed me on so many levels, taking me deeper and deeper in my faith with Him, and I learned so much. Whatever lies ahead in this coming year, I embrace it. This includes every area of my life, my relationships, my work, my social life and my personal life. I am trusting God with every bit of my being and trusting that wherever I place my feet, the soiled is blessed.

Written by Jori Sams

Jori Sams is a Christian author and freelance writer with nearly 2000 published pieces on the Internet, with over 1500 being published by Yahoo. Her books are published through Writeious Books. When she isn’t writing, you can usually find her following the sun…